HARRY:
I hadn't noticed it, but now that you point it out -- YES, yet
ANOTHER error on the letterer's part in that "Duck Who Never Was" story.
He left off the $#@&# title. I must leave that blank area in the
upper-left quadrant of the splash-panel for the placement of the logo
and story title, mostly for Gladstone's use. As of a year or so ago, all
the Egmont countries adopted a style where the art on page 1 of each
story is shrunk, and the logo-title is put above the art, outside the
borders. And that is why I can't draw in a stylized BOX to receive the
story title (for instance, as I did in GotLL) because they would either
need to remove it in Europe, or just leave it BLANK and make the page
(and me) look stupid, as they started doing in Europe before I realized
I'd better leave those things out. But, YES -- I would NEVER leave a
space that big and empty on purpose.
The letterer's exact mistake on DD's birthdate was to transpose
where he was supposed to put "month" and "day". Yes, I know that I had
it placed "European style", opposite of the American manner. But that
shouldn't have confused the guy THAT much; after all, if he noticed I
"had it backwards", that means he must have conciously put some THOUGHT
into where he was placing the words, therefore he would never have made
such an error as he would have clearly known he was putting "Month:
September". And he left off "year" altogether. There was no excuse for
that bumble! &%#$^%
On the other hand, you've reminded me of something I was already
well aware of: my Duck Family Tree IS indeed built upside down. The
reason is that a normal family tree traces the lineage of ONE person
BACKWARDS. My Duck Tree traces the lineage of three complete different
families FORWARDS, so it had to be built upside-down. And since the
letterer didn't know this, that IS an explanation for his mistake.
However, the script told him how it was to be done, and he did not
follow his directions.
GEIR:
I think you are beginning to understand what I'm saying about
why Svein Erik Soland treats you as he does, but you're still not with
me all the way. I still think it should be VERY obvious why he treats
you the worst. You get lots of publicity and Soland's job is to control
EVERYTHING that is said to the press. Here's another bit of the puzzle
that you may not be aware of: Egmont is GREATLY AFRAID of the press in
Scandanavia. I'm not sure of the justification for this, but they have
told me that the press there is "gunning" for them; Egmont is so large
and omni-present and powerful that the press has a natural inclination
to seek to find BAD things to say about them. This is a key part of
Soland's responsibility. You are interested in the public view of the
Ducks -- great -- but Soland might be worried about his JOB, which is
more important for a guy with a family and responsibilities. And you
know that you do like to get publicity about the "adult" content of the
Barks stories -- and you must realize that, regardless of Soland's
personal feelings about that, his BOSSES regard the Disney license
material as just for kids, and they want only WHOLESOME, FAMILY values
to be discussed. The press will be anxious to use YOUR material rather
than the official Egmont items that it's Soland's job to get into print.
In other words, I think you should realize that Soland views
you as possibly his GREATEST threat. I'm sure he doesn't think you are
doing these things maliciously -- why would he? -- you're not The
Weasel -- but you are a major problem to him nonetheless. The LESS he
tells you about what's going on... the LESS he lets you be involved in
the official Duck business, the more control his bosses will see that
he has over the Norway situation. I think you are BOTH right in your
stance, and yet you are an unavoidable irritation to each other. The
only way to solve it is for the two of you to work together more
closely... but even then, you will have to realize that in that
situation, Soland must be the one to decide what's right. But perhaps
you'll at least understand each other better, he won't irritate you so
much, and you won't scare him so much.
I'll talk to him about this when I see him in November.